HORSE

So much has been written about the coming of
the horse to the Western Hemisphere with the
Spanish invasion that it is often forgotten that
the Americas are the home of the modern,
single-hoofed horse, Equus. Having evolved
from the tiny, one-foot-tall and three-toed
Hyracotherium some two million years ago,
the modern horse migrated from North America
to Asia over the Bering Strait land bridge.
When the first humans crossed the strait in the
opposite direction after about 20,000 B.C., they
found the Great Plains teeming with horses,
which for several millennia were among the
many species of megafauna hunted by the first
Plains peoples. Then, some 8,000 to 10,000
years ago, the horse followed the mammoth,
camel, and other large American mammals
into extinction, apparently as the victim of
overhunting and a changing climate.

The ensuing intermission in the history of
Plains Indian horse use lasted until the early
seventeenth century, when the Spanish reintroduced
the animal. Although horses began
to infiltrate the Plains soon after the Spanish
settled New Mexico in 1598, widespread
diffusion began only after the Pueblo Revolt of
1680. The subsequent Spanish abandonment
of New Mexico put large numbers of livestock
into the hands of Pueblo Indians, who embarked
on an active horse trade with Plains
nomads. Carried forward by Plains Indian
raiders and traders, the horse frontier advanced
rapidly, reaching the Missouri River in
the 1730s and the Canadian Prairies in the
1770s.

The horse that the Spanish brought to the
Americas was the famed barb horse, a mix of
Arab and Spanish stock. Bred to survive in the
North African deserts, these small but sturdy
animals found a fitting ecological niche in the
dry, grass-covered Southern Plains. By 1800
Comanches, Kiowas, and other Native groups
of the area possessed enormous herds. The
region between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas
River also supported about two million
wild horses, which had propagated from strays
left by raiders. However, as the horse frontier
expanded northward through the Plains, it lost
its momentum. The harsh northern winters
reduced horses' reproductive success, and the
heavy snowfall made feeding difficult, causing
severe winter losses. Combined, these factors
prevented most Northern Plains groups from
becoming fully mounted. While the Southern
Plains Indians had as many as four to six horses
per person, only the Piegans in the Northern
Plains had enough animals to put all their people
on horseback.

Horses revolutionized the Plains Indian way
of life by allowing their owners to hunt, trade,
and wage war more effectively, to have bigger
tipis and move more possessions, and to transport
their old and sick, who might previously
have been abandoned. The impact of the horse
was most dramatic on the Southern Plains,
where a true equestrian culture emerged. Comanches,
Kiowas, Arapahos, and Cheyennes,
who became specialized horse raiders and
herders, maintained large herds of surplus animals
for trade with other Native groups and
European Americans. Horses also became the
foundation of status systems by changing relatively
egalitarian societies into nascent class
societies based on horse ownership. In fact, so
attractive was this new horse culture that many
groups–most notably Comanches, Lakotas,
and Cheyennes–abandoned their traditional
homelands for an equestrian existence in the
Plains. In doing so, they became some of the
most refined and celebrated equestrian societies
in history, matched only by the great horse
cultures of Asia. However, the large horse
herds also disturbed the region's delicate ecological
balance, as they competed for water and
grass with native species. By the early 1840s the
crucial river valleys had already become overexploited,
pushing the massive bison herds
into an early decline. It is also possible that
horses triggered a decline in women's status
because the bison hunt became more the domain
of the mounted male hunter rather than
of the society at large.

The horse culture established weaker roots
in the Northern Plains, where the lack of animals
prevented the Indians from making a full
equestrian transition. Plains Crees, Assiniboines,
and other northern groups relied extensively
on inferior dog transportation and
pedestrian hunting methods. The shortage of
animals also encouraged warfare, as tribes
tried to stock their herds by raiding their
neighbors. Yet another variation of the full-fledged
horse culture emerged among the
Pawnees, Wichitas, and other horticulturists
of the eastern Plains, for whom the horse was
a mixed blessing. Horses encouraged these
farmers to diversify their economies by allowing
them to increase the role of bison hunting
in their subsistence cycles. Mandans, Hidatsas,
and Arikaras on the upper Missouri River enhanced
their role as the paramount traders in
the Plains when they started to channel horses
from the Southern to the Northern Plains. But
horses also overtaxed local ecosystems, obliging
the Pawnees, for example, to stay away
from their villages for extended periods of
time. Horses also attracted raiders. After 1830
Lakota war parties swept down on Pawnee villages
almost every year, seeking horses, corn,
and honor, and precipitating the decline of
this once-powerful people.

The beginning of the reservation period after
1850 marked the end of the Plains horse
cultures, but it did not end the association
between Indians and horses. During the difficult early years of reservation life, many previously
nomadic groups turned to cattle and
horse ranching as an alternative to the forced,
alien agrarian lifestyle. Rodeo has offered another
important way to maintain the connection
with horses. On a more abstract level,
most people still link Plains Indians and horses
almost automatically, and the Hollywood film
industry has sold the visual image of the
mounted Plains warrior as the stereotype for
all North American Indians. To many Indians
the horse continues to symbolize their traditional
cultures and lifeways as they existed before
the European American takeover. From
celebration parades and art to actual herds on
reservation fields, horses are still integral to
Plains Indian life.

Pekka Hämäläinen
Texas A&M University

Ewers, John C. The Horse in the Blackfoot Indian Culture.
Washington DC: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1955.

Holder, Preston. The Hoe and Horse on the Plains: A Study
of Cultural Development among North American Indians.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970.